When I started programming, I was hoping to be a professional programmer within a year. Maybe two. I pictured myself as an expert, and studied the minutia of Python. If I memorized the documentation, I’d be an expert, wouldn’t I?

This apprenticeship pattern describes why that line of thinking is false. Becoming an expert is a lifelong experience, and the expert realizes there is always more to learn. It warns against taking the best, highest-paying job as soon as possible. Instead, value learning and accept the role of an apprentice.

I beat myself up for not pursuing my interest in programming when I was a child. I asked a cousin how he programmed video games when I was 10 years old, but didn’t write my first line of code for 5 years. Even then, I found the task daunting. Obsessing over details slowed me down. I didn’t completely dive into bigger projects until my 20’s.

The best learning experience I’ve had was an internship. I had freedom to try new things, make mistakes, and overcome challenges. I built a large project on my own, which my team loved. At a larger company, I would have likely worked on a much smaller piece of a huge puzzle. The experience of starting on my own will pay dividends for my entire career.

Similarly, while returning to college after a few years of programming was frustrating, it was helpful. I had thought CS-101 would be a complete waste of time. Instead, it was a chance to dive deeper into subjects I was already familiar with and gain exposure to concepts I hadn’t. It provided a foundation, which is the essence of this pattern.

This section of the book says there is no one so far ahead that you cannot catch up if you think decades ahead. This idea is an extreme relief to those of us who started a bit late. It’s tempting to compare ourselves to the teenage CEOs of the world and take shortcuts to catch up tomorrow. But I plan to write software for the rest of my career, so this pattern is a reminder to take my time, enjoy the process, and understand that consistent, continual effort will get my skills where I’d like them to be.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Inquiries and Queries by James Young and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

This week, I’d like to discuss the next step from last week’s apprenticeship pattern. Once you’ve exposed your ignorance to others and realized it yourself, you have to own it and fix it. If others can’t help you, you’re on your own.

This pattern can be used in isolation, without showing others. This is helpful if it’s something very basic which would be embarrassing to admit to, or something you lied about knowing, which is never a good idea. The downside to learning on your own is an isolationist mindset. In a team where everyone is working on their own, this could create a culture where ignorance is frowned upon.

I generally agree with the ideas in this pattern. It is good to keep its downsides in mind, especially since I know I generally prefer to learn on my own. Sometimes, it is simply more efficient. In college, I’ve saved about 2 semesters’ worth of time (and money) by taking CLEP exams, learning the material on my own. For some subjects, it’s simply much more efficient to create my own study guide, find the gaps in my knowledge, and fill them in.

The result of doing so has been much clearer, broader, and more detailed understanding of the subject matter as a whole than I would have otherwise had taking a class. Taking a single exam held me more accountable than a class generally does, which is broken up into smaller assignments with the goal of preparing you for the final exam.

This would never be the case for learning to work on a software team, as we are in our software development capstone. Reading about Agile won’t make you an expert in Agile. Collaboration is a practice.

While not always ideal, I think this pattern can be extrapolated to professional applications. If you’re learning a technology on your own, you don’t know what someone might ask of you. The pressure is on to learn as much as you possibly can. If your goal is to appear as knowledgeable in a subject as possible, this pattern might be the way to go.

The warning against taking this pattern to the extreme is valid in cases of working with a team. It is important to use discretion when choosing between exposing ignorance to others, or confronting it on your own. I plan to lean toward exposing ignorance and asking for help in the future.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Inquiries and Queries by James Young and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Last week, I gave an overview of my planned independent study project. This week, I’ll give a bit more detail on what I’ve done.

I have a habit of preparing for classes before they start. I buy the text books, get an overview of the material, and prepare to apply learning techniques throughout the semester. This helps me identify problems before the semester starts and address them in class as I go. Likewise with this project, I had hoped to get as much as I could done with machine learning before this semester started to hit the ground running with the software portion. Naturally, my ignorance led me to assume the problem was easier than it actually is. After a great conversation with a communications professor, I realized the problems I was trying to solve had to be broken down.

Counter-intuitively, the broken down problem is more difficult. To recap, my project involves machine learning and audio signal processing. Although great leaps have been made in this field and many problems have been solved, they mostly use clever tricks to achieve the results they get. Take speech recognition for example: your text-to-speech software transcribes nearly 100% correctly. Machine learning models can use huge datasets of audio, as well as commonly-spoken phrases to decide which words you’re most likely to say. The result is that mumbling, stuttering, or ambient noise is a bit more forgivable. On the contrary, transcribing each and every syllable is not nearly as easy, and in fact it’s a problem that has yet to be solved. That’s a shame, considering I was hoping to transcribe an audio sample into phones as part of my process and I somehow doubt I can do it without first getting a PhD.

This realization has led me to take a quick course on machine learning problem framing. It teaches the process of developing an hypothesis and developing a model to prove it, as well as resisting the temptation to shoehorn a problem into machine learning when a heuristic solution is as good or better. I did manage to find examples of using machine learning to solve some of the problems I wanted to (dating back 20+ years, even), but unfortunately they were each limited in scope and would be difficult to use to make a cohesive app. My goal isn’t a Frankenstein project.

In an effort to dig deeper, I’ve also done an introduction to Pandas tutorial, and started on a Tensorflow tutorial. These are surface-level in and of themselves, but help in understanding the higher-level frameworks. My hope is that understanding the basics will allow me to create a model that has an exciting application. In the meantime, I can implement the prerequisite features in software: audio recording and signal processing.

I’m going to dive into more specific problems as the semester goes on and I get more comfortable with the topics. I’ve already come up with a list of ideas and find myself wanting to write posts on small things like Android project flavors and build configuration. Posting thoughts and lessons in a public place has been great for accountability, and my goal is to know these technologies inside and out 4 months from now.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Inquiries and Queries by James Young and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

This apprenticeship pattern concerns something that most people are afraid to do. Nobody wants to look ignorant in their profession, because we are expected to be competent and knowledgeable and that is what we are paid for.

The main idea is simple: don’t pretend to know something you don’t. This leads to headaches in many ways, but most importantly it will make it more difficult to learn what you need to learn. In software there is an endless supply of new technology to learn and throughout a software career, there will be countless projects that use something you don’t understand. Admitting this fact and asking others for help is the quickest way to learn it. At the same time, you will build trust with your team and show that you know how to learn.

We are trained to look competent from a young age. We need good grades to get into better classes, a better college, the best job possible. Getting a poor grade reflects lack of preparation rather than exposing ignorance, so it’s natural to think that we will be seen as unprepared if we show ignorance in our work. If this fear is realized, it is likely a problem with the culture.

The most important idea in this pattern is showing others that learning is part of the software process. Speaking from experience, I’ve never judged a coworker or classmate for something they didn’t know. Each of us has our expertise, and if I don’t have time to teach something, I can at least be there for support if they need it. What would become an issue, is when someone says they can get something done and only much later admit that they can’t, when it’s too late to get them up to speed.

Likewise, people have always been willing to help in the times I’ve admitted not knowing. More often than not, the response has been mutual frustration. I’ve saved myself a lot of worry by admitting confusion and hearing from tenured employees that “it’s just confusing, I don’t really understand it either”. The result is a collaborative effort where both people come out knowing more, and having a better rapport in the future.

This pattern is an excellent reminder that we’ll never know it all, and that pretending to is not a long-term solution. The suggested action is to write down five things that you don’t understand about your work, and showing it where others can see it. This seems like a good tactic, and I plan to do this on a whiteboard at work. Coworkers who know better than I will hopefully guide me in the right direction.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Inquiries and Queries by James Young and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.